Friday, June 16, 2017

Contest #101

How about we do one with blog reader Susan Pogorzelski's The Last Letter (which got a lovely reveiw in PW recently!) for the prize!

The usual rules apply:

1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.

2. Use these words in the story:

last
letter
pogo (I put this one in just to see what Steve Forti will do with it!)
ease
lime

3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the
prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards.
Thus: pogo/pogostick is ok, but last/least is not

4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.

5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.

6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.

7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)

8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.

8a. There are no circumstances in which it is ok to ask for feedback from ME on your contest entry. NONE. (You can however discuss your entry with the commenters in the comment trail...just leave me out of it.)

9. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"

11. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.

12. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.

Contest opens: 9am, Saturdy, 6/17/17

Contest closes: 9am, Sunday, 6/18/17

If you're wondering how what time it is in NYC right now, here's the clock

If you'd like to see the entries that have won previous contests, there's an .xls spread sheet here in Colin Smith's treasure chest list

66 comments:

We were waiting for the elevator in my new building. His hair combed back, jeans rolled into cuffs, navy and lime socks sticking up from his boots, the warmth of his cologne. The ease of us together now gone, he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. My heart pogoing at the nearness of him.

Two elevators arrived. We neared one together, until the last moment when he veered into another.

No sign, no letter, no concrete evidence. I just knew. He had moved on.

Last. That's what place I came in. My dream of a varsity letter vanished like a pogonip in the midday sun, when my face hit the dirt. Embarrassing too, tripping right off the starting line while everyone else finished the race with ease. Nothing to do now, but drown the disappointment in a sixer of Lime-A-Rita.

She places the last pogonia japonica next to the lilies. Unusual in a funeral spray but she can hardly argue when it’s for the owner’s wife. And they do look sublime.

Carnation letters on the table spell wife. Pink for love and white for innocence.

“Oh please,” she mutters. “She hadn’t loved you for years and she certainly wasn’t innocent.”

The lump in her throat betrays her. The hardest thing about burying your married lover, she reflects, isn’t gripping your grief so tight it feels like it’ll crush you. It’s wondering how to survive tomorrow if it doesn’t.

The blood in my cough meets the white of the sand. Blends to pink like the scar of sunset over open water. The waves meet my toes. The evening stars twinkle - that first one’s for me. My breath’s tempo gone – that last one’s for the sea.

I walked by the house on my way home. The house that felt disease​d. The house with plast​er walls crumbling.The house with lime​ trees no one dared pick. The house with the pogo​ stick by the front door, as if childrenwould play there. The house with the pair of eyes peeking at me through the letter​box. The house with theeyes that shifted as they followed me, as if I were the one up to no good. The house with the eyes Idesperately wanted to beat in a staring contest.

(A murderous tempo. Going down fast.No way to attain the speed of the last Man to fall from the sky like a sublime lost sun -Shot from a gaping black hole like a gun.)

You’re too shallow, Excelsior! Pull up!

(Streaming down from the stars, a diaphanous capeFilled with burning unease and a need to escape.It’s like killing a miracle, just give in and pull it.It’s dancing with fireworks, ballet with a bullet.

Terminal velocity: so easy, achieved -But beginnings are deadly if not well conceived.)

Time creeps over us like a shadow over the sundial. With an enviable ease, it creates a past on which we look back with shrieks of pleasure and grimaces of pain, indiscriminately weighted toward pain. As I read your last letter to me, before time took you away with its great pogo leap of destiny, I remember our hopscotch days, the small tin of shoe-polish, weighted with sand. Our dented, scratched, rusty, trusty plaything with the lime stripe. I miss you. As if someone chiselled a piece from my side, the chip is permanent, now moved to my shoulder.

Nip in the air turned into a pogonip. All flights were delayed. Then cancelled. Even a complimentary crempog didn’t appease seething passengers. Whatever you call it, crempog or Ffroes, a proper compensation it’s not. Besides, it was a crempog, not crempogau! As in, not plural.One passenger was such a slimeball, he let terrier off leash… A growl. A yelp. I had a blast. Deportation failed.

The last thing I remember is downing a jumbo fruity drink with strawberries, lemons, and limes sloshing like dinghies in a fishbowl-sized margarita glass. This afternoon, I see my face and naked fanny plastered all over Facebook as I attempt a striptease using a pogo stick as a dancing pole. On my left cheek – face not butt—a fine artist has drawn a picture of a finger and thumb shaped as the letter, “L.” 1,634,719 shares. I call that a win.

I loved your touching last letter and my emotions are like a sporatic roller coaster, or a pogostick. I wish I could ease your pain, which leaves a sour taste in my mouth like a lime, but alas, I cannot.

At first, I thought it a typo gone wrong, words smeared by a tear or soda. But after reading the letter again, realization hit me like bugs on a windshield. Here was his confession. His last attempt to ease the feud.

I should’ve taken it as a compliment, but I’ve never been that optimistic. I scribbled my own response, folded it, and sent it flying across the classroom.

For years, we had a prank war built through animosity. A pigtails in paint, boxers up flagpoles kind of thing. But our date to prom will end that. Or so he thinks.

“Get up.”“No.”“Get out of bed.”“No!”She staggered as another blast rocked the building. The glowing letters on the skyscrapers outside disappeared under rime.“Please. The city needs you.”He hid under a pillow. “I won’t fight Captain Cold. He’s bush-league.”She grabbed the pillow. “You petty… The city is trapped in an ice fog!”“It’s called pogonips,” he muttered. She flared her nostrils. “What?”She sighed. “Fine. I thought asking you was a compliment, but they’d better find someone else.” She paused. “Maybe Batman—“Whoosh!Lois caught her balance and smiled. “Faster than a speeding bullet.”

Such a frail thing now, sharply creased and frayed at the edges, like a letter well and carefully read. People file up to the box, blink as sunlight bleeds scarlet and lime through the windows. They mouth condolences, their grief, like hers, spent long since.

She steps last to the box, breathing carefully in the silence. He barely fills the uniform, a shadow man. She'd thrown him and his things out before his last tour. Now nothing remained. Breath scrapes her throat.

Clicks echo against marble. His dog, thin and three-legged, but alive. His Pogo. She cradles him. Her Pogo.

Pogo slowly and carefully inscribed the last letter of his testament, sealed it into the bottle and eased the carrier into the slime of the Okefenokee Swamp.‘Poor ol’ W. C. Kelly, Jr…’ he mused.‘Pro’bly a spinnin’ in his grave, ‘bout now…‘Well… I guess we’uns is on our own…’He shook his furry head in dismay.‘We has met the enemy… and they is us…’

I remember our first kiss. I didn’t see it coming. She was so pleased to see me, it just happened. I didn’t care that it was wetter than I expected; I just smiled. That night we watched Letterman, her head in my lap, my hand on her head. A simple gesture forging an unspoken bond. We were inseparable, from pogo sticks to Driver’s Ed, birthday parties to High School proms.

I remember her last kiss. Saliva slime on my hand. I didn’t wash for a week.

NASA's first funding extension request to Congress was a letter. Their last: a bomb threat. That didn't work. Fine.

NASA went to the oceanologists instead. (Should have gone there first.) The oceanologists believed them. (They had suspected.) NASA eased the confiscation of their entire budget with a preferential compo. "Go up, not down, if you wish to save Humanity," NASA said.

Love isn't a footnote in life.¹She loved me.²I pleased her.³Each day, I wrote her letters begging for another kiss.⁴My heart drummed a tempo God couldn’t match when I married her.⁵She cried during our impromptu honeymoon.⁶Because love lives…⁷

1. Love is an endnote in life.2. She loved me not.3. I repulsed her. 4. Each day I read her letter, remembered our last kiss. 5. The Devil’s drumming complimented my heart when I buried her.6. I cried during her impromptu funeral.7. All love dies.

Sharpening her resolve with the knivesShe stood in his spotless kitchen and practiced on the picture she most adoredA stroke of brilliance. "I'll prove my love”She said and pressed his picture to her lips, determined not to fail.“I’m ending it”He said. Too late.All that work—shark fin soup, ogonori, fish fillet, teriyaki—for nothing. “Please take me back”She’d be enough.She wasn’t enough.She plucked the shards of her shattered heart.Piece by bloodied piece

He glared at his exposed reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the sight of his bare skin. The doctor’s letter, now in shreds, littered the floor behind him.

Hypogonadism.

He hated the word almost as much as he hated what it meant. Low testosterone. Inadequate sperm count. Infertility.

Only hours ago, she kissed him awake and whispered the compliment in his ear. “You were incredible last night. I think we finally did it.” And she stood in front of the very same mirror, cradling her naked belly and looking pleased.

Title: The Story of Pogo's Last, Final, and Most Recent Letter Regarding the Ease of Sucking Limes on a Hot Summer Saturday Afternoon in New York City's Washington Square Park With the Five Borough Lime Sucking Contest as an Honored Representative of the South Bronx Summer Lime Sucking Team, Freshly Kicked Out of Gracie Mansion by Ed Koch's Personal Security Team Even Though Koch is Long Dead and How Sucky It Was Even Though Everybody Liked Koch Including Me (And I Don't Know Why).

“The last pogo stick was rented.”Fuck.“Please.” I showed the letter to the woman behind the counter. Hoped she didn’t see the blood smear.She eased back. Stared at me.Sirens wailed around us.“Please.”Then I spotted the framed photograph.“From a mother to a mother. I beg you.”Finally she handed over a lime green helmet. “Take the one in stall four. It’s mine.”I sprinted to stall four, pogoed from the park to the alley behind Chuck’s Chow Mein as instructed.And there she was. Safe. Eating chow mein like she’d never been taken.My girl.

In the back of an old desk I found a letter. It appeared to be at least a few hundred years old, maybe from the last millennium when I eased it from its envelope. It had been written with a quill and limed to set the ink.

The emotions of the confessions of young lover jumped from the page and bounced like a pogo stick. As I read it I remembered a similar letter from my youth. I realized that no matter how far we go along the path of humanity this song will always remain the same.

Last summer: We dance barefoot on the lawn in matching dresses. My heart's tempo goes andante to allegro when our hands brush. Lemon-lime pop bubbles on my tongue.Last autumn: Halloween. You ease my mask up off my face and kiss me, taste of candy corn and chocolate.Last winter: Caught. Your parents make you disappear. My gingerbread house crumbles, turns to cardboard.Last spring: You don't come back to school. The world goes monochrome, and maple cream eggs taste like ash.Today: I get your letter. Drink a pop that fills me up with citrus starbursts. Smile.

The master sergeant eased his old metal coffeepot, heavy with limescale, onto the stove. Yesterday, his commanding officer had given him an ultimatum – become a pog, or retire. His response lay on the table next to Betty, his faithful revolver. She was the only thing he owned of value, and the only value he owned.The letter – the longest the taciturn Marine had ever written - recounted tales of battles won and spoke of battles soon to be lost. He’d taken his last order. Betty’s safety clicked, and the pot gurgled a dirge. He let her cry.

Last night, while Mama hid her laptop behind Mr. Hippo, she said Michael might show up in my room and invite me for a ride. “He’s creepy”. I said.“Go with him”.“No!”“Please, sweetheart. Do this and Papa will be gone forever”.I like that. Gone forever - Papa, his guns, his hairy hands.“Okay”.Mama said she’ll find me. “Just keep Michael talking”.

old rusty golf carts lettered with POGO line the road to the inn. discarded. the dining room is packed and the kitchen has stopped. there’s no food service except for drinks; i order tequila with a wedge of lime.

the full moon casts a rough shadow on the Atlantic. a man at the next table smokes a cigar and it’s too much, too much. the last innkeeper introduces himself. there’s a bandage on his ankle—betadine shadows. i'm thinking diabetes but i could be wrong. he eases himself into a chair opposite and whispers, “Stone Cold is here."

It’d been four months since V-J Day. When people had danced in the streets as if on pogo sticks, exactly three months since Elena had first seen the photo of the nurse and sailor kissing in Life Magazine. She imagined her Limey fiancé seizing her the same way when he came back to her in London. They’d met just before he’d been released from the army hospital. He’d romanced her through letters, his endearing humility as much on display as his ardent patriotism. But as her trembling fingers, opened the telegram, she faced either everlasting relief or despair.

I'm supposed to be writing Gram a letter. A thank you letter. For the sublimely ugly sweater she gave me for my birthday. It's too horrendous to even be ironic.

The color: a shade of mauve even mauve wouldn't claim. The collar: scalloped. The cost: she must have bought it in some after Christmas sale last year, because who gives a sweater to someone with an August birthday?

Since I can hardly write "Sweet pony on a pogo stick, please never send me something like that ever again" I've been struggling.

It was over at last. Mosby would disband rather than surrender. Baron's letter was smudged throughout as evidence of the many fallen tears. There were no compliments and vows save one. He was coming home, never to part again.

"Miss Mac! Men coming with a wagon."

I raced down the lane, looking for Baron, but he was not among the riders. Their grim faces told me all. They eased to a stop so I could climb in. He was covered in blood. His pulse beat a faint tempo, gossamer whispers of his failing heart. "Told you--" He smiled wanly.

Dear Sir, the reply reads.I’ve never been a sir, but I didn’t have anyone to help write the letter.We would like to assist you, and you certainly seem worth of our aide –I’ve never been worthy of anything.But –Now we get to it.Unfortunately, at this time we are unable…Blah, blah, blah. What they mean is NO.I toss the letter onto the cardboard and rags that serve as my bed, use the lime-colored pogo stick to ease myself upright, and pretend the leukemia won’t soon steal my last breath.

From his seat in the airliner, Abdul watches the sun over the refugee camp at Aleppo go down magnificently hued by campfires and a sandstorm on the horizon. It is the sublime vision, the last, for night advanced out windows across the aisle; darkness moving west to east, and this night would let terrible things happen. A small explosive, screams, the cabin door is breached. “Ease off, easy now,” he instructs the infidel pilot in the London accent that kept many secrets. “We’re turning west.” The copilot watches him, a brother in faith, and surely now in shared fate. “Abdul?”

Dearest Jane, my first pen pal! Your sweetly scented missives, mailed from exotic locales like Peoria and Walla Walla, were sublime. You never described yourself, but I imagined you a beauty because of the throngs of people who followed wherever you went.

In your last letter you agreed we should meet. I immediately traded my entire savings for a one-way train ticket. It wasn’t until I saw you across the crowded tent that I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

Like a starlet in the limelight Natasha bestowed smiles on all two of her fans. How I'd gotten stuck babysitting her on this book tour I'll never know. She signed books and pranced. Then, like a cheapo going to the movies, Natasha lined her purse with treats. She snatched the last Snickers, something I'd looked forward to as a balm for my sore feet and bruised ego. I couldn't let that slide. I eased up to her purse, popped the letter in, and grabbed the Snickers. Later, she'd read: Book tour cancelled due to lack of interest.

Do these slimes think they can take advantage of me with ease? As I said in my last letter to the editor, I demand an investigation. An international consortium of criminals stole my private files and blasted them across the Internet. I’ve been violated, humiliated, stripped naked. The entire country is in ruins because of what they stole from me. Why doesn’t somebody do something? Where is the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, and my local police? Why doesn’t somebody protect the Internet?

The pogo virus? Phishing scam? How was I supposed to know it didn’t really come from Google?

“Sorry, I was writing a letter to your mom,” I said. “Offered her a ride on my pogo stick.”

He scoffed. No comeback at 0200. He shuffled out, not even a good night. Whatever.

The collision alarm sounded: sharp, insistent. We didn’t have time to guess what kind of drill it was. Metal screeched against metal, it increased with every violent quake. Water poured in. Close the doors; lock the hatches. We had to save the ship.

“It’s peculiar the way things are going now the End of Days is near,” Clarisse mused, adding some lime to her tequila.

“I know,” I said. “The last thing I wanted was to die before I’d chance to celebrate. Ease into The Last Day, rather than rush into it. At least the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem are happy. The Government’s funded their grant for ten thousand Pogo sticks.”

“Really? I bet they don’t get them. The application will be void. There’ll be a letter out of place or something.”

She scratches away at this, her last letter. Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again.It will be my last letter, too. I feel the ink running dry. You see I can’t even write this properly.I have felt her hand upon me, her madness and genius flow through me. Together, we have wrought worlds. Until this terrible disease. I shan’t recover this time.With grave tempo, go to the lighthouse. Fill your pockets with limestones. I bequeath the last of my ink. Be not afraid. Beyond The End, our words will live forever.

You wrote: “I was plastered.”I meant to write, “It was plastered.” It’s a typo, GOT IT? What was plastered?My hand.Your hand was plastered?A plaster is what you Yanks call a bandage. Tell me again.(sigh) I lost control of my car because my HAND was bandaged and slipped on the wheel, and I accidentally hit your police vehicle.But you wrote…Blimey, I forgot one lousy letter!…Hassling the perp, Officer?A bit, Sir. He hit the police car...accidentally.Oh!I’ll release him when he’s finished his statement.Carry on, Officer. (wink)Yessir! (smile)

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I'm a literary agent in NYC. I specialize in crime fiction and narrative non-fiction (history and biography.) I'll be glad to receive a query letter from you; guidelines to help you decide if I'm looking for what you write are below.
There are several posts labelled "query pitfalls" and "annoy me" that may help you avoid some common mistakes when querying.